A printer can do a lot more than just print documents these days: you can use modern printers to print photographs, scan, photocopy and more with a host of different colours and inks available for the perfect print-out.

With so much choice, it can be overwhelming when choosing a printer, so read below some top tips on finding out what type of printer is right for you.

Printer for Home or Business?

Before you start investigating different brands and what they are capable of you should decide what you will require your printer to do.

If you work from home and need a quality printer for your business needs, it may be important that you have a good ‘all round’ printer that includes scanning and photocopying abilities, as well as capabilities to print good quality images and documents for presentations.

You should consider how often the printer will be used to make print outs and whether the print-quality has to be of the very best standard if you are using it for business purposes.

If however you simply need a basic printer for the home, perhaps to print off discount vouchers, directions or the occasional amusing email attachment, then you can easily get away with a more basic printer to meet your needs.

The print speed when using black ink is 35 pages per minute and for colour, 15 pages per minute. Its print speed for photos is 53 per minute and it has photo enhancing features to produce the best quality pictures. With a built in copier and scanner it can meet the needs of a home office, too.

The Right Printer for Photographs

For budding photographers the right printer is a must-have and while issues such as print quality and ink are a given, another thing worth considering is the print size you are likely to want.

If you simply want to print out snaps, then most printers or a compact photo printer will do a pretty good job, but if want to show off your work with larger scale prints of your favourite photos you’ll need something more specialist. Most printers print up to A4 in size, but if you want to print out anything larger – perhaps an A3 sized photo to frame – you’ll need to shop look out for a large desktop A3 sized printer.

Compact Photo Printers

If you are on the lookout for a compact photo printer to print off snaps from a holiday or a wild night out on the town, it may be worth spending a bit more money to ensure you get the quality that will keep the photos looking fresh for years to come.

Laser or Inkjet?

Laser printers print a lot quicker than inkjets so if you require multiple pages to be printed off this is a good choice.

They are bigger and noisier than inkjet printers however, so if you work in a quiet, small office a laser printer may cause disturbance to work colleagues if it is in regular use.

Laser printers however are cheaper to run as the ink that they use is less expensive, although colour laser printers are quite a lot more expensive than mono laser printers.

Laser printers may also not be suitable for your needs if you require having printouts on both sides of the same page. In this sense laser printers are not as versatile as inkjet ones; they also cannot print photographs onto photograph paper.

The EPSON EPL-6200NMONO NETWORK LASER PRINTER is a good quality laser printer, however it does only print in black and white. Its print speed is an impressive 20 monochrome pages per minute on A4 pieces of paper with 600 x 600dpi Print resolution.

The CANON PIXMA IP4850COLOUR A4 INKJET PRINTER is a good alternative inkjet alternative printer. It also prints onto a maxim page size of A4, prints with black ink at 11 pages per minute and coloured ink at 9.3. It boasts a print resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi and can print photographs.

Compatibility

A main consideration for choosing a printer is to ensure it is compatible with your pc or laptop. Some mobile phones can even wirelessly connect to printers to print a document or image straight from a phone.

Think about which devices you are likely to use to print from and check the compatibility of the printer you are considering purchasing with your existing equipment.

Some printers are specifically designed for certain devices, and these are usually more expensive.

Ink

If you buy an expensive printer make sure you budget into the total cost the expense of having to replace the ink.

Some top of the range printers require ink that can be quite pricey, and this will be an ongoing cost towards your printer: if you are intending on using your printer on a daily basis this may not be an affordable option.

Ink cartridge prices range from the cheaper KODAK 394991410B make of black ink at an affordable £8.16, to a EPSON T048 MULTIPACKT048 which has different coloured cartridges of top quality and costs £65.35.